Creative Memories All About Images Blog

Memory Manager Preserves Metadata

From: Lea Ward
Date: January 30, 2010

Hello Mark, This is very interesting information. I read some more on the Library of Congress website and actually read some on metadata, I hope you will explain a little more about this and how our Memory Manager Software is using metadata and how that can be a selling point. If I were a professional photographer for instance, would storing digital images on MM 3.0 and adding their copyright info. or their licensing rights on each photo, protect those images once distributed on disc or through e-mail? Thanks, CM Consultant, Lea Ward

metadata

noun

data about data; "a library catalog is metadata because it describes publications"

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

Metadata is the information about a photo. It may tell you when it was take, where it was taken, and who is in the photo. It may include star ratings and complete journaling details. In Memory Manager, these details are stored as part of the image file, ensuring that this information is not lost if the files are emailed or used for other projects. Many other programs store this information in a separate file where it may be lost over time. Metadata may also include copyright and digital rights management information, although a complete discussion of the legal implications is outside the scope of this blog.  

 

Think about how valuable an old shoe box of unlabeled photos would be with all this information. Nobody would wonder who is in a photo or when it was taken. Memory Manager prevents this scenario from happening with digital photos.

 

For more technical information on metadata, check out the Metadata Working Group

and the Guidelines for Handling Image Metadata.   These are the guidelines that Memory Manager 3.0 follows.

StoryBook Creator for the Macintosh

We have received many comments and emails requesting StoryBook Creator for the Macintosh and would like to let everyone know that we have heard you. We are now actively working with Macintosh developers and hope to have StoryBook Creator developed specifically for the Macintosh available in the fall of 2010, assuming everything goes as planned. Our goal is to develop a version that incorporates the capabilities available in the Windows version, along with the unique features of the Macintosh operating system.  We expect the Macintosh version to be fully compatible with files created under Windows and to use the same content as the Windows version. I have just finished reading Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney and have a Macintosh at my desk so I hope we can fully capture the spirit of the Macintosh as we proceed with this project.

Calendars Preserve Photos

I take a lot of photos, including many that never wind up in StoryBooks. In fact, until Creative Memories added the calendar feature to StoryBook Creator 3.0, I had no idea what I was going to do with all those photos.

I used 438 photos to create my calendar, and the advantage of the new calendar is that when the year is done I can tear off the calendar grid and I will have 438 photos on album pages. I can then place these pages in either a Picfolio Max or traditional album

Now I know that I will not lose these photos, even if something happens to my computer and the external hard drive that I use to backup my photos.

To create these pages, I used the SBC 3.0 2010 Plus Basic Calendar Pages  and the Insert Empty Frame feature of StoryBook Creator Plus. I resized the first frame and placed it in the upper right hand corner of my page. I then replicated this frame to create the first row. Next, I grouped all frames in the first row and then replicated this row to create an entire page of empty frames. Finally, I ungrouped the frames in each row and filled them with photos that I had taken throughout the year.

I selected 12 sets of photographs (one for each month) and then determined approximately how many frames I would need for each set. I also determined if the photographs were primarily vertical, horizontal, or a mix of both and designed the page accordingly.

Once I had all my photos in, I added holidays, birthdays, my anniversary, etc, along with a few photos on special days. Now my calendar is ready to print.

Get your calendars completed now and have them ready for ordering, which begins November 1. I have included two pages of my calendar in this posting. More information about calendars is available at Give the Perfect Calendar, and my complete calendar is on Facebook.

Image Enhancement

Page Prints and StoryBooks contain photographs as well as artwork and backgrounds. These items are combined into a single page. We cannot enhance photographs without adversely affecting the artwork and background. Consequently, we recommend enhancing your photos prior to printing your StoryBook or Page Print. Enhancing photographs ensures that exposure and color are correct, red-eye is removed, and the image is sharpened, if necessary. StoryBook Creator includes complete image enhancement features to make these improvements.

Another approach is to enhance photos prior to importing them into StoryBook Creator. Making changes prior to bringing photos into StoryBook Creator allows you to share the enhanced photo, even if it is not part of a completed StoryBook. Memory Manager, as well as various image enhancement programs, is designed to make enhancements.

In the past I have used Adobe Photoshop, which is a professional image editing program that sells for nearly $700. I started using this program prior to Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator and have become reasonably adept at editing photos with Photoshop. The process was still very time consuming, as I had to individually review and edit each photo. For a trip or event with several hundred photos this editing process could easily take several hours.

I recently discovered a far better solution. Image Editor from Colour Science has a batch processing mode that allows me to avoid tedious, manual editing of each image. I now spend more time creating StoryBooks and journaling my stories.

Image Editor does not replace either Memory Manager or StoryBook Creator. Instead, Image Editor works with Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator to allow photo enhancement before bringing photos into either program. Image Editor has no ability to track, label, and archive photos and cannot create unique StoryBooks, Page Prints, and other products. 

The downside of Image Editor is that it has a lot of features and requires some trial and error to determine the appropriate settings. A free 20 day trail is available from Colour Science and the program costs $65 for the home version and $115 for the standard version.